


Edges

by paintedunlady



Series: Trans!Soo Soulmate AU [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Brief Mention of Misgendering, Light Angst, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Trans Male Character, Trans!Kyungsoo, can be interpreted either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 19:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7905001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedunlady/pseuds/paintedunlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo never thought much about how he would meet his soulmate or even who it would be; more than anything he wanted to know what name would be written on the other person's wrist. But now he's finally felt the Pull, an unexplainable force guiding him towards his soulmate, and he knows that the time to find his answer has finally come (inspired by part of <a href="http://krumcake.tumblr.com/post/84983728019/honestly-im-really-only-interested-in-soulmate">this</a>  alternative soulmate AU tumblr post)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edges

**Author's Note:**

> this fic... oh boy it took a LOT for me to finally feel comfortable posting it for various reasons and i would really appreciate feedback on it. thank you to yenyen who helped so much with giving me the confidence to finally share this with everyone else <3 i honestly couldn't have done it without you

Kyungsoo stares, takes a sip of his coffee (peppermint mocha from Starbucks that just came back on the menu yesterday, but he would never admit to it because Do Kyungsoo doesn’t _do_ fads), puts it back down, and stares some more. He doesn’t know why he came here or what he’s supposed to accomplish, but when It had pulled him off his normal path to a stone table covered in decades of mildew and nature, he was nearly powerless to refuse. The wind bites roses into his cheeks and his once steaming coffee is getting colder by the second, but he can’t leave- not yet. There is something here he has to accomplish; he just isn’t quite sure what. 

He’s too preoccupied with the brightness of the sun and little winged bugs dancing around in the grass to hear the rustle of footsteps coming up behind him, yet he doesn’t start when there’s suddenly a tangled mop of blond hair and dark dark eyes flooding the corner of his vision. 

“Whacha drinkin’?” the newcomer asks, muffin bits clinging to the corners of his mouth and a pastry sleeve with a design damningly similar to the one on Kyungsoo’s cup plopping down right next to Kyungsoo’s unoccupied hand. The latter looks up with a blank stare and set jaw.

“Coffee,” he answers. “Black.” 

The other nods sagely and flops himself down on the bench next to Kyungsoo, much like his pastry, uninvited. Even sitting and with painfully slumped posture, the man still towers over Kyungsoo and casts him partially in shadow. “Ahh, I see,” he says, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “Peppermint mocha then?”

Despite it all, Kyungsoo’s own lips twitch up into a heart-shaped smile, but only for a split second- there and gone again all too quickly. “You know it’s my weakness,” he mutters before taking another slow sip, the cool of the peppermint no longer needed to soothe the burn of the coffee going down his throat as he exhales. “What are you doing here?” Kyungsoo asks. 

“Was about to ask you the same thing,” the other man garbles around a bite of muffin, his voice entirely too loud for the empty park they’re in and smile too bright for the shitty cold. 

And yet Kyungsoo’s wrists suddenly feel very warm. “I asked you first,” the younger man says, and if his voice sounds a little more breathless, his friend doesn’t seem to take notice.

Instead, the blond flaps his arms around at his sides in some vague gesture as he swallows down the mush in his mouth and is only effective in flinging some crumbs at Kyungsoo’s face. The smaller man catches a flash of red peeking out from one of the other’s dark blue sleeves as it makes a pass by his ear, but he doesn’t have the time to process it while the other is blubbering on. 

“It’s just not very like you to be sitting out here… people watching,” he explains with some extra flailing to find the right words. 

Kyungsoo blinks slowly. “There are no people out here Chanyeol,” he deadpans. _No one but us._

The other’s flailing turns into dismissive waving and Kyungsoo catches the red again- there’s no mistaking it this time. “You know what I mean,” the older chides. “It’s just not like you, especially in this kind of cold. I know you wear an extra layer than most people, but you’re usually at home buried under a million blankets reading manhwa and hating the entire world.”

Kyungsoo’s cheeks suddenly start giving his warm wrists a run for their money, and he tries to hide it by snuggling deeper into his jacket. “I do not read manhwa…” he grumbles into the fabric even as he pictures the hidden drawer in his room stuffed full of the cheesy illustrations and declarations of young love. 

Chanyeol just laughs and crashes his body into the other’s much smaller shoulders. “Sure you don’t,” he teases around a rumbling laugh and effectively pulls a reluctant chuckle from Kyungsoo’s throat. 

“Okay so maybe I’ve read a few,” Kyungsoo relents before they lapse into a comfortable silence only broken by the crinkle of paper and occasional smacking of Chanyeol’s lips. It’s a while before he feels like finally answering Chanyeol’s initial question, and when he does, Kyungsoo can’t quite look the other man in the eye. “It pulled me here,” he finally admits, just barely lifting his sleeve-covered wrist with a slight shrug. He misses Chanyeol’s eyes darting to his own covered wrist, but still feels the way he goes stock-still beside him.

“Yeah?” Chanyeol asks, voice still light as ever but with an undeniable strain around the edges (or at least undeniable to those who know how to look for it.) He hesitates for a moment, mouth opening and closing around deep breaths before speaking again, this time much softer. “How long have you been here? There’s no one else willing to freeze in a park like this in the middle of a weekday,” he says, and Kyungsoo nods slowly. 

“Yep. No one but us,” he affirms. They both know he’s not quite answering the question, but Chanyeol doesn’t push it. Instead, Kyungsoo sets down his now cold coffee and curls slightly in on himself. “My mother always said it wasn’t going to happen,” he breathes out on an unsteady exhale. “’ _Not until you start acting like a proper lady Kyunghee. No one is going to want to Pull you if you keep this act up._ ’” Kyungsoo doesn’t know when his hands started shaking so badly, but he chooses to attribute it to the absence of warm coffee in his fingers instead of the sudden tendrils of anxiety shooting through his bound chest. He hopes Chanyeol hasn’t already noticed as he stuffs them inside his coat pockets and inhales a gust of cold air. “I guess now I get to tell her she was wrong.” 

“Of course she was,” Chanyeol fires back without missing a beat. “There’s no reason to act like anyone other than who you are; the whole point is that they’re going to accept you no matter who that happens to be.”

The words disappear into the air but echo in Kyungsoo’s mind like copper bells. They still don’t look at each other as they lapse into another silence, and the anxiety only digs its claws deeper into Kyungsoo’s chest the longer it stretches on. He doesn’t want to discuss the real reason for it when the answer is potentially so close (besides, they’ve discussed it before- no need to beat a dead horse), but Chanyeol decides to pick at it anyway. The taller man chews on his lips and his words and his thoughts for a few seconds before actually approaching it, and Kyungsoo waits for the question with bated breath. 

“Are you still worried about-”

“Terrified,” Kyungsoo answers immediately. Names written anywhere have always made Kyungsoo nervous; names permanently written on wrists have given him full-blown panic attacks (but he’ll never admit to that either.)

Chanyeol just scratches his own wrist with a hum of acknowledgement and lets it go. Even though Kyungsoo can only see the blond out of the very corner of his eye, the sun is now casting a hauntingly golden glow across Chanyeol’s face, and Kyungsoo doesn’t think he’s ever seen his best friend this tranquil before. 

“I’m sure it’ll be the right one,” Chanyeol nearly whispers as he stuffs the uneaten half of his muffin back into his bag and pops up off the bench with renewed energy. “Here, you want the rest of this?” he asks as he holds it out to the smaller man and beams. “I don’t want to hold you up for when they come and the drivers don’t allow food on the bus.” 

For a long time Kyungsoo just blinks at the offered hand and tries to process the words being spoken to him instead of the ones in front of his eyes. In his opinion, he comes back remarkably quickly and Chanyeol does nothing to indicate otherwise. “You’re asking me if I want to eat something practically covered in your slobber? Yeah, thanks but no thanks,” he sniffs before picking up his coffee and fighting back a grimace as he swallows the icy liquid down. 

Chanyeol just laughs with a shake of his head. “Suit yourself,” he says as he tosses the pastry into a nearby trashcan and turns back to Kyungsoo with a wave. “Let me know how it goes. I’d kinda like to meet the poor bastard before they make the mistake of buying you a peppermint mocha this week. Only I’m allowed to know that you can even stand the sight of the things.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes at the other’s horribly exaggerated wink, but allows himself a smile anyway because the anxiety he’s harbored for almost twenty years is suddenly gone. “No promises!” he shouts to Chanyeol’s retreating form, even though now he knows that he’ll never have to worry about it- any of it- ever again. 

_An ‘S’ and two ‘O’s,_ Kyungsoo thinks to himself. _No ‘H’s and no ‘E’s. Not a single one._

Despite the thundering of his heart, he manages to wait until Chanyeol has completely faded out of sight to jerk his sleeve all the way up to his elbow and reveal the red words emblazoned onto the pale skin of his wrist, staring right back at him and innocently reading 'Park Chanyeol'.  
\--

Some few hours later, Park Chanyeol finally crashes through the door of his apartment and rips off his overcoat, no longer able to ignore the burning of his wrist. The sleeves get caught on his thumbs in his haste, but once they’re gone he still has to pause to take a steadying breath before peeling back the last bit of fabric and bearing the name of the person he'll never be able to live without- the one he never _has_ been able to live without. When he finally sees it he has to read the words aloud before he can fully believe it. 

"Do Kyungsoo," he reads, giddy laughter bubbling up from his chest as he reads it again and again and again until the laughter overtakes him and he doesn’t have a voice anymore. "Do Kyungsoo," he repeats just one more time because the name is just so _beautiful_ permanently etched into his skin and rolling off his tongue.

_Do Kyungsoo. No ‘H's and no ‘E's._

**Author's Note:**

> much more to come on this au! i've already written the backstory of how kyungsoo and chanyeol know each other and their lives together (plus some side stories!) with more characters, i just need to find the confidence to post that too since it gets a bit... more in depth. this au hits a lot of points that are very personal to me, so feedback on this will really help me in posting the rest ^^
> 
> also, just in case it was unclear, the letters at the end are referring to kyungsoo's name. the H's and E's are for kyungHEE and the S's and O's are for kyungSOO


End file.
